While on a treasure-hunting excursion inside Firetop Mountain, a hapless adventurer accidentally unearths the Crown of Chaos, which brings a quartet of metal giants to life to destroy anything in their path. Oh yeah, that adventurer? That was you. Now your quest is a much more serious one: find a way to stop these invincible agents of destruction.
Shadow of the Giants provides examples of:
- And the Adventure Continues: After defeating the giants, then being rewarded handsomely for your victory, you think about buying a castle and retiring, but know in your heart you'll be adventuring until the day you die.
- Call-Back: Just before the crown's discovered, the player also finds a portrait of Zagor that's described exactly the same as the original cover art for The Warlock of Firetop Mountain (and thus notably contradicts the way Zagor is actually described in the first book.)
- Cassandra Truth: You run into a guy who's trying to warn the townspeople that the giants are on their way and the town will be destroyed, but nobody believes him. You know he's telling the truth, and since you and him are the only people who know how serious the situation is, he becomes your sidekick for the rest of the book.
- Cruelty Is the Only Option: You have to sacrifice your adventuring partner by letting him put on the crown, otherwise you'll be the one to die. This does incur an unavoidable Luck penalty.
- Cursed with Awesome: You can be given a magic lamp by a man who's eager to get rid of it, because he says the genie in it is annoying and doesn't want to grant wishes. There are no downsides to taking the lamp, and if you do, the genie uses his magic so you can fight a gorgon with no combat penalty or risk of petrification.
- Eating Contest: Just like in the same author's Armies of Death, you can participate in a pie-eating contest.
- Embarrassing Last Name: You can befriend a ranger named Willard Honk, whose nickname is "Goose".
- Fortune Teller: You can visit one before your trip into Firetop Mountain, who gives you a clue in exchange for some gold.
- Logical Weakness: The only way to destroy the iron giants is the saliva of "rust beetles".
- Luck-Based Mission: Even after defeating the giants, whether you get the Golden Ending or Bittersweet Ending is determined by a Luck roll.
- Monumental Damage: In a sense, as Goose relays that longstanding series fixture Stonebridge was leveled to the ground by the giants.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: This time the player's the one who discovers the Artifact of Doom and unleashes its evil power on the world.
- Power Levels: The magic swords you can wield have inherent power levels. Normally this only shows up when you're fighting the particular monster type they're strong against, but which type you're wielding is also reflected in the modifier they add when fighting the Giants themselves.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: The crown, which was locked in a booby-trapped chest behind a concealed metal door, where sunlight couldn't activate its magic, and for good reason.
- Sidekick: You'll have two, one at a time. A dwarven miner and a ranger who can't get anyone else to believe him about the giants.
- Stupidity Is the Only Option: When you find the crown, your only choice is whether you or your partner puts it on immediately, accidentally bringing the giants to life by doing so. There's no option to not put it on, stow it in your knapsack instead, and find someone who can tell you what it is first.
- Turned Against Their Masters: Zagor created the giants so he could conquer Allansia, but kept the crown hidden until he could devise a means of controlling them so they wouldn't turn against him. However, he fell to the hero of the first book before he managed to complete it.
- Umpteenth Customer: You can get a free bonus while buying a new weapon because of this.
- Weapon of X-Slaying: Every sword you can wield — and there are a lot — is magical, and gives a bonus against some kind of enemy you might encounter.
- Wrecked Weapon: You broke your sword on your last quest and are shopping for a new one as the book begins (and might be stuck with your old one if you decide to act Chaotic Stupid).
